


Hit in the head

by womanroaring



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Identity Reveal, One Shot, Romance, Secret Identity Fail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 17:52:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8294770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/womanroaring/pseuds/womanroaring
Summary: This wasn't the way that they imagined revealing their secret identities to each other. Sweet fluff, I guess.





	

 

When he woke up, Adrien barely knew where he was. Ladybug’s face was above him looking a bit blurry, and worried and something else he couldn’t decipher, and then it all came back in flash. They’d been battling the latest akuma victim, a villain who had called herself the Gardener, and he’d been hit.

He must have been knocked out.

It wasn’t until he saw Plagg doing a nervous little dance behind her that he entirely understood what must have happened.

He had changed back while he was unconscious.

“Adrien?” Ladybug was saying ( _she remembers my name!_ he couldn’t help thinking), “are you all right?”

“Ha,” he found himself saying. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag, then?”

His voice sounded very far away.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I saw that you were about to change back so I got us out of harm’s way. You got hit pretty hard, it didn’t seem right to leave you. Don’t worry -- nobody knows where we are. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“I never thought it wouldn’t be,” he said, going to sit up and finding the room spinning. He placed his head back where it had been, and realized that was Ladybug’s lap.

Things could be worse, he thought. It occurred to him that he should maybe feel violated or something -- exposed -- but mostly he wanted to stay here forever in this place where for once in his life he was finally _known_ ; like he was really being _seen_ -

“You -- you could change back now if you’d prefer,” she was saying. “Turns out we’re in the storage room of a café, Plagg’s eaten about four camembert so far…”

“Give me a minute,” Adrien said, feeling kind of sick.

“I’m so sorry -” she started to say again, but he stopped her with a weak hand on her mouth. “No. Don’t be sorry. I’m not sorry. I’ve wanted you to know who I am from the start, you know that. And when I’m him -- when I’m the cat -- all I seem able to do is act playful with you when really I’ve been trying to work out for the longest time how to tell you how I feel. Sometimes my chest physically hurts with it at night, or my throat stings with the words stuck there, unsaid -”

Plagg interrupted at that point, little destructive thing that he was. “As much as this is warming my heartstrings, or possibly my VOMIT strings, I actually would prefer it if Adrien got his claws out now. If he transforms, the damage to his body will heal. And he doesn’t realise it now, but he’s more hurt than I’d like.”

“What? I’m fine, look,” Adrien said, and he went to sit up. His vision exploded with spots of light and he swayed back to Ladybug. “Oh, Adrien,” she whimpered. “Please do what he says.”

He flopped back into her lap. “Claws out,” he said, his teeth gritted against the pain in his head.

Once the transformation was complete, he was amazed at how much better he felt. He must have really been badly injured.

He went to grab Ladybug’s hand, to continue what he’d been saying, but she dodged him. She wouldn’t even look at him.

“I -- I stayed to make sure you were ok,” she said. “But now I’m going to stay so that everything can be right between us.”

She pulled her hair away from her earrings so he could see them more clearly.

She must have used her lucky charm at some point while he was out.

She only had one spot left.

“It’s not fair to you if I know your secret and you don’t know mine,” she said. She looked stricken. He didn’t know why. “And you were right -- we do know each other.”

He took her hand. “Thank you for trusting me,” he said. “I -- I can’t wait to meet you.”

They looked at each other for a moment; but she couldn’t bear it.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

She changed back.

She needed several seconds before she could manage to open her eyes again.

When she opened them, Cat Noir was looking at her like he’d been hit by a truck.

He realized she was looking at him, and then he pulled on that smirky smile, like he was going to say something that was just going to annoy her.

She put her hand over his mouth.

“Don’t,” she said. “I know you said that when you’re the cat, all you can do is play, but -- but when I’m the bug, all I can do is fly away. I -- I didn’t think it was fair to fly away after you’d shared with me. I’ve wanted to share myself with you -- with both of you -- but now I don’t feel like I had any choice. I wouldn’t have felt like it was fair if I didn’t.”

They stared at each other seriously for a moment.

He put his hands over her hand, still on his mouth, and kissed it.

He didn’t know what to say -- that feeling was back like if he didn’t get the words out, his chest was going to explode and he didn’t know if he even wanted to say anything at all or just kiss her -- and he was just moving towards her, blindly, dumbly, when there was a squeaky noise behind them. It was Tikki, shoving the last of a biscuit into her mouth, saying, “Marinette! The Gardener!”

“Right!” Marinette said grabbing back her hand, suddenly all business. “Quick, Tikki! Spots on!”

Cat Noir had never seen Ladybug change before. He honestly hadn’t realized how much more impressed he could be by her, but his jaw might have dropped. He might have stared. A lot.

Ladybug rolled her eyes at him. “Wake up, Cat Noir! We’ve got a garden that needs tidying up!”

“Uh -” was all he managed to say before she dragged him out of the storeroom they were in and back out into the fight.

It took them all of five minutes to take care of the Gardener after that -- you’d think Hawk Moth would have started screening some more competent akuma victim candidates by now -- but when it was time to run off before they changed back, Cat Noir grabbed her hand.

“Please don’t,” he said. “Please, Mar -- my lady, don’t leave me.”

“I have to,” she said. “I want you to think about this all as Adrien, before we talk about this. About our … personal situation.”

And then she was gone.

The next morning was Saturday. Marinette slept in, and had breakfast, and went back upstairs, feeling lost and vulnerable and a bit like she was going to cry. Then her mother called out in a significant voice that she had a visitor.

She went down the stairs with her heart in her throat.

It was Adrien.

She grabbed his arm and dragged him up to her room before her nosey parents could display any _more_ interest than they already were.

“Are those… marigolds?” She asked, looking at the not-exactly-subtle red and white flowers he was holding.

He held them out to her. “I read that they’re good for attracting ladybugs,” he said, blushing and rubbing the back of his neck. “And I hear that girls like flowers, too,” he added, straightening up and getting some of his confidence back as he saw that she was blushing and avoiding his eye too.

She looked up.

Their eyes locked.

She smiled.

And took the flowers.


End file.
